


The trouble with hope

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [76]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Frenemies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 17:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11696901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: They’d been spending afternoons brainstorming for a week now, and the Doctor was cautiously optimistic about Missy’s rehabilitation.  The key word: cautiously.On the subject of their research… oh, hope was a dangerous thing.





	The trouble with hope

**Author's Note:**

> Another short scene with Twelve and Missy before we go into finale territory... thanks so much for sticking with me everyone!

 

 

“Alright, how about this,” Missy said, waving the Doctor over to the desk without looking up from Milly’s dissertation.  

They’d been spending afternoons brainstorming for a week now, and the Doctor was cautiously optimistic about Missy’s rehabilitation.  The key word: cautiously.

On the subject of their research… oh, hope was a dangerous thing.  

“If the Hazandra uses the nearest star as an energy source, it’s essentially solar-powered, right?  Based on its known historical uses… maybe there’s limitations on the functions it can perform with that sort of energy input.  Playing with gravity a bit is one thing, but conservation of mass is trickier to get round.  But it _wants_ to grant wishes, that’s its whole thing.  It’ll be searching for another power source, something that can manipulate matter.”

“Like what, for instance?”

“Well, we’re working with this giant, alive-ish computer, yes?  It’s stored loads of people before, physical bodies included.  But they were uploaded intact, as it were.  Like a teleport.  In this case, we need to give the computer something to download them to.  Or, I suppose, to... print them with.”

She glanced up at the Doctor as he looked over her shoulder, and there was something in her expression that set off little alarm bells.  Was it nervousness, guilt, a liar’s tic?  None of them were things he expected to see on Missy’s face.  Lying came to her as naturally as breathing, and he was still dubious about her claims that she now felt guilt, though day by day he was becoming more convinced.

“What,” she said, her expression shifting to a suspicious scowl.  “I told you to quit googly-eyeing me, it’s creepy.”

“You’re not telling me something.”

She immediately looked back to the book in front of her.  “Don’t know what you’re on about,” she said, too lightly.  “I’m helping.”

“Missy.  This isn’t going to work if you lie to me.”

 _“You_ said honesty’s not a requirement for being good.”

He sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.  “I did say that.  It’s a requirement for _you_ if you want to stay out of the vault, though.”

She finally twisted around in her chair.  “The fact that you need me to tell you means you’ve forgotten.”  She looked down at the floor.  “I wasn’t looking forward to reminding you.”

“Forgotten?” the Doctor asked, and cleared his throat.  “What, what have I forgotten?”

“Quite a few things, it seems,” she said, uncharacteristically gently.  “It happens when you take out big pieces.  Like surgery.  You can’t cut memories out without getting some bits around them too.  Especially people.  They… metastasise.”

“Oh.”  He sighed, flopping down into an armchair.  “So, I guess you’d better explain, then.”

“You’re going to be cross with me.”

“I’ll really be cross if you don’t tell me.”

“It doesn’t even matter, because it won’t help!  It’s just, you might say I’ve a bit of experience in this whole… printing people area.  Recent experience.”

“What, and you’re just mentioning this?!”

“Well, it took me a while to be sure you didn’t remember it!”

“W—hurry up, then!” he sputtered.

“Fine!” she snapped again.  “You remember the whole Cyberman army thing, don’t you?”

“Missy, if you’re trying to suggest some sort of, of—”

“Shh-shh-shh-shh!” she held up a finger as he glared at her.  “Before you get yourself all wound up, just listen.  I saved people’s minds on my own little sliver of Matrix.  I saved their bodies separately, too, for making Cybermen later on.  But it was also possible to sort of… print a new hard copy.  To download the stored mind and the biological imprint.”

“Danny,” the Doctor whispered, leaning forward and putting his hand over his eyes.  “I’d forgotten about him.”

“But he didn’t use it, did he?”

“No.  No, in the end he gave it to somebody else.”

“But it doesn’t matter, Doctor.  We’d still need the physical imprint first, the stuff that can’t get stored on a neural relay.”

“Wait— you said… the, the, the Nethersphere, or whatever the bloody hell you called it, it was like the Matrix.  A hard drive, a, a— neural network.”

“Yes… but it’s gone now.  Empty, dead, kaputt.  And even if I still had it, they weren’t on it.”

“Missy,” he breathed, looking up with wide eyes while his hearts began to pound, “she was in the Matrix.”

“What— the actual one?  The Gallifrey one?”

“Yes!” he leapt to his feet.  “River was in it!  Physically, actually, in it!  She, she, she wasn’t just _in_ it, she _projected_ herself out of it!”  He started to pace about the room, hands gesturing independently of his brain, a delirious grin spreading on his face.  “Shouldn’t have been possible, but oh, that’s her all over!”

“When was this?”

“Back before the Time War!  I didn’t know who she was, until…” he stopped in his tracks.  “She saved me.  I was trapped in, in, nowhere, and notime, in a disintegrating Vortex and she got me out, and then _she_ was trapped… how the hell did she get out of there?”

“So… now you’re thinking of going to Gallifrey.”

“I have to try!  What she did in there… she had to’ve left a mark.”

“And why, pray tell, do you think they’re just going to roll over and give you access to the Matrix?  To resurrect your wife, of all things, whom they’d be trying to kill if she weren’t already dead!  You know, the whole Hybrid prophecy… they’re quite hung up on it, and she certainly fits the bill.”

"What do I care if they let me?” the Doctor scoffed.  “They can’t stop me!”

“Considering the last time you tore through there, I’d venture a guess that they’ve prepared for the possibility of your return.”

“Hah!  They can try.  If there’s one thing I’m good at doing, it’s the unexpected.”

“There _is_ actually a chance they will kill you,” Missy sighed impatiently at his back as he paced across the room.

“And if I don’t do this?” he shouted, whirling round to face her.  “What the hell am I alive for, then?”

“Doctor…”

“Doctor!” Bill’s voice came muffled from outside.  “You in there?”

He sighed.  “I’ve gotta go.  You— you should go back in the vault tonight.  I’ll need the TARDIS.”

He moved for the door, but she was suddenly on her feet in front of him, gripping his arm.  

“Doctor.  Listen to me.  Don’t do this yet.  And don’t do it on your own.  If you must go, take me with you.  With two of us, we might have a chance.”

“Missy, you know I can’t do that!  I still don’t know if I can trust you.”

“You trusted me enough to bring me along to Scotland.”

“You were bio-locked inside.  You were doing engine maintenance!  I’m not bringing you on, on a suicide mission to Gallifrey!”

“Your words,” she said, frowning.

“Oh, you know what I mean!” he groaned.

“Doctor?” Bill called again from his office.  “It’s six o’clock!  Someone dying?”

“Just— give me a test run first!” Missy pled.  “Something else, whatever you want, so you know you can trust me!”

“Missy—”

“I’m your _friend,_ Doctor.  I don’t want you going off and killing yourself because you’re too much of a bloody idiot to listen to reason or accept help!”

He gaped at her, standing in front of him teary-eyed and distraught and, if not sincere, making a hell of a show of it.

“I—”

“Doctooor?”  Bill sounded closer now; he must’ve left the front door unlocked.

“Okay,” he said, rubbing distractedly at his forehead.  “Fine.  I… won’t go yet.  I’ll think of something.”

Missy visibly deflated in relief, taking a sharp breath and wiping at her eyes.  The Doctor hovered for a moment, totally at a loss and torn between conflicting impulses.   Maybe he should apologise for upsetting her?  Or maybe she was putting on the performance of her life and would be impassively inspecting the damage to her makeup the second he turned his back.

Then Bill knocked at the study door, and he decided fleeing the room without a word would have to suffice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me just say, the more I write this story, the angrier I am that River has not been resurrected on the show, because the hardest part? MAKING IT SEEM HARD TO DO. I can think of half a dozen extremely obvious ways she could be resurrected within show canon, but in order to justify the Doctor not having bloody done it already, it's gotta seem complicated... Attn: show writers, when you just hand-wavey, deus ex machina resurrect other people all the damn time, you need to think about the implications!!!
> 
> Ok, done ranting now!


End file.
